1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of semiconductor devices and fabrication processes and, in particular, to CMOS devices formed in a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology with reduced drain induced barrier lowering (DIBL) and a method for fabricating the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is an ever-present desire in the semiconductor fabrication industry to achieve individual devices with smaller physical dimensions. Reducing the dimensions of devices is referred to as scaling. Scaling is desirable in order to increase the number of individual devices that can be placed on a given area of semiconductor material and to increase the process yield and to reduce the unit cost of the devices and the power consumption of the devices. In addition, scaling can result in performance increases of the individual devices as the charge carriers with a finite velocity have a shorter distance to travel and less bulk material has to accumulate or dissipate charges. Thus, the trend in the industry is towards thinner device regions and gate oxides, shorter channels, and lower power consumption.
However, scaling often creates some performance drawbacks. In particular, a known category of performance limitations known as short channel effects arise as the length of the channel of CMOS devices is reduced by scaling. One particular short-channel effect in CMOS devices, known as Drain Induced Barrier Lowering (DIBL) is mainly responsible for the degradation of sub-threshold swing in deep submicron devices. DIBL is a reduction in the potential barrier between the drain and source as the channel length shortens as illustrated in FIG. 1 reflecting known prior art. When the drain voltage is increased, the depletion region around the drain increases and the drain region electric field reduces the channel potential barrier which results in an increased off-state current between the source and drain.
In conventional CMOS devices, a retrograde channel dopant profile can be effectively used to control DIBL. In a CMOS process, n-type and p-type wells are created for NMOS and PMOS devices. In a typical diffusion process, dopant concentration profiles in these n- and p-type wells are at a peak near the surfaces and decrease in the depth direction into the bulk as illustrated in FIG. 2. A retrograde profile is one in which the peak of the dopant concentration profile is not at the surface but at some distance into the bulk as shown in FIG. 3. Such retrograde profiles are helpful in deep submicron CMOS devices since they reduce the lowering of the source/drain barrier when the drain is biased high and when the channel is in weak inversion. This limits the amount of subthreshold leakage current flowing into the drain. A lower level of subthreshold leakage current provides improved circuit reliability and reduced power consumption.
A retrograde dopant profile also typically results in a lower dopant concentration near the surface of the wafer which reduces junction capacitances. Reduced junction capacitances allow the device to switch faster and thus increase circuit speed. Typically, retrograde profile dopant implants are done after formation of the gate. A halo (or pocket) implant is another known method used in deep submicron CMOS devices to reduce DIBL.
However in some applications, such as in an SOI process, it is difficult to create a retrograde profile due to the thinness of the silicon layer and the tendency of the dopants to diffuse. A SOI process has a buried insulating layer, typically of silicon dioxide. State-of-the-art SOI devices have a very thin silicon (Si) film (typically  less than 1600 xc3x85) overlying the oxide in which the active devices are formed. Increasing the Si film thickness any further will increase the extent to which the devices formed therein get partially depleted. SOI devices also suffer from xe2x80x98floating bodyxe2x80x99 effects since, unlike conventional CMOS, in SOI there is no known easy way to form a contact to the bulk in order to remove the bulk charges.
When the as-implanted retrograde dopant profiles diffuse during subsequent heat cycles in a process, they spread out and lose their xe2x80x98retrogradexe2x80x99 nature to some extent. In SOI, since the silicon film is very thin, creating a true retrograde dopant profile is very difficult. This is true even while using higher atomic mass elements like Indium (In) for NMOS and Antimony (Sb) as channel dopants. Diffusivity of these dopants in silicon is known to be comparable to lower atomic mass elements like boron (B) and phosphorus (P), when the silicon film is very thin, as in an SOI technology. Moreover, leakage current levels are known to increase when Indium is used for channel dopants (See xe2x80x9cImpact of Channel Doping and Ar Implant on Device Characteristics of Partially Depleted SOI MOSFETsxe2x80x9d, Xu et al., pp. 115 and 116 of the Proceedings 1998 IEEE International SOI Conference, October 1998 and xe2x80x9cDopant Redistribution in SOI during RTA: A Study on Doping in Scaled-down Si Layersxe2x80x9d, Park et al. IEDM 1999 pp. 337-340, included herein by reference).
From the foregoing it can be appreciated that there is an ongoing need for a method of fabricating deep submicron SOI CMOS devices while minimizing short channel effects such as DIBL. There is a further need for minimizing DIBL in deep submicron CMOS devices without incurring significant additional processing steps and high temperature processing.
The aforementioned needs are satisfied by the SOI CMOS device with reduced DIBL of the present invention. In one aspect, the invention comprises a semiconductor transistor device comprising: a semiconductive substrate; an insulative layer buried within the semiconductive substrate; an active layer of semiconductive material above the insulative layer; a plurality of doped device regions in the active layer; a gate structure formed on the device regions; source and drain regions formed in the device regions such that the doping type for the source and drain is complementary to the doping type of the corresponding device region; dopant diffusion sources placed within the buried insulator layer underlying the device regions wherein the dopant diffusion sources diffuse into the device regions so as to create a retrograde dopant profile in the device regions; a plurality of conductive layers electrically interconnecting the transistor devices; and a passivation layer overlying the conductive layers. In one embodiment, the semiconductive substrate, insulative layer buried within the semiconductive substrate, and the active layer of semiconductive material above the insulative layer comprise a SOI Separation by IMplanted OXygen (SIMOX) wafer.
Another aspect of the invention comprises dopant atoms implanted through the device regions such that the dopant atoms come to reside within the Buried OXide (BOX) layer underlying the device regions creating a borophosphosilicate glass (BPSG) within the BOX layer. Formation of the passivation layer causes the dopant atoms contained within the BPSG to diffuse into the device regions so as to create the retrograde dopant profile in the device regions. The retrograde dopant profile has a peak concentration substantially adjacent the interface of the BOX and the active region. The retrograde dopant profile in the device region provides the transistor device with improved resistance to drain-induced barrier lowering (DIBL) and also provides the transistor device with recombination centers to reduce floating body effects.
In another aspect, the invention comprises a method for creating semiconductor transistor devices comprising the steps of: providing a semiconductor substrate; forming a buried insulation layer in the semiconductor substrate; forming an active layer above the buried insulation layer by placing additional semiconductor material on the buried insulation layer; doping the active layer with dopant atoms so as to form device regions; implanting additional dopant atoms through the device regions such that the additional dopant atoms come to reside within the buried insulation layer underlying the device regions; implanting dopant atoms into gate regions of the device regions; forming a gate stack on the active layer adjacent the gate regions; implanting dopant atoms into the device regions such that the dopant atoms come to reside within the device regions adjacent the gate regions so as to form source and drain regions and wherein the gate stack substantially inhibits penetration of the dopant atoms into the gate regions of the device regions; forming conductive paths that electrically connect to the source, drain, and gate regions; and forming a passivating layer overlying the conductive paths. The method of the invention also includes implanting dopant atoms through the device regions wherein the dopant atoms come to reside within the BOX layer underlying the device regions thereby creating a borophosphosilicate glass (BPSG) within the BOX layer.
In another aspect of the invention, formation of the passivation layer induces the dopant atoms contained within the BPSG to outdiffuse into the device regions thereby forming a retrograde dopant profile within the device regions. The retrograde dopant profile within the device regions reduces DIBL effects for the CMOS device and also provides recombination centers adjacent the BOX active region interface thereby reducing floating body effects. These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.